Ives Maes (°Hasselt, 1976) is a visual artist who works and lives in Antwerp. He studied sculpture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. He was an artist in residency at HISK Antwerp from 1999 to 2001, at the Bagfactory in Johannesburg in 2005, and from 2008 to 2009 at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. From 2012 to 2018 he was working on a Ph.D. in the Arts at KASK School of Arts & University Ghent. Since 2018 Ives Maes is affiliated as a post-doctoral artistic researcher to KASK School of Arts and the Hogent Arts Research Fund.
Working mainly with installations and photography, Ives Maes is a multidisciplinary artist who has developed several long-term projects that revolve around the concepts of temporary architecture, nomadism, ruination, and ephemerality.
In 2004 he started working on his Recyclable Refugee Camp project, a proposal for biodegradable living units for displaced people. Besides disappearing pavilions and latrines made from resin and hemp, he also developed more controversial items such as biodegradable anti-personnel mines. In 2008 a book was published on the project by Mer Paper Kunsthalle:
Since 2008 he is working on a photographic series about the architectural heritage of World’s Fairs. For this project entitled The Future of Yesterday, he has travelled around the world to document what is left behind from the universal expositions. The utopian visions of the future that were projected during these fairs are often in strong contrast with the heritage of poorly conserved architecture and neglected monuments. It is this fringe between utopia and dystopia that the artist captures in his series. In 2013 an extensive book was published by LUDION:
www.ludion.be/nl/books/detail/the-future-of-yesterday
In Sunville he worked on a synthesis between photography and installation in the form of curved frames and photographic installations. Sunville is a translation of the name of his native village Zonhoven in Belgium and the series was a personal quest into his memories about specific locations in his hometown. In 2018, the book SUNVILLE was published by LUDION:
www.ludion.be/nl/books/detail/sunville
Currently Ives Maes is working on a new research project, Forbidden Fruits Create Many Jams, which connects the principle of the camera obscura pavilion to a perception of paradise.
Ives Maes had solo exhibitions in contemporary art centers and galleries such as Brigitte Weiss Gallery in Zürich (2004), the SMAK in Ghent (2006), Ludwig Forum in Aachen (2007), MuHKA Museum in Antwerp (2007), Z33 Art Center Hasselt (2008), Art Cologne (2009), Void+ Tokyo (2010), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (2012), Christian Nagel Gallery in Berlin (2012), STAM City Museum in Ghent (2013), Sofie Van De Velde Gallery in Antwerp (2017), the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Deurle (2018), and the Royal Museum of Fine Art Antwerp / KMSKA (2022)
Group exhibitions took place in, among others, W139 in Amsterdam (2001), the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco (2002), MAMCO in Geneva (2004), the Museo de arte Carillo y Gil in Mexico City (2005), NAK in Aachen (2006), BOZAR Brussels (2007), Emergency Biennial (2007), 3rd Biennial of Photography Ludwigshafen (2009), the National Museum in Beijing (2010), FOMU Photo Museum Antwerp (2011), the 6th Moscow Biennial (2015), the Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt (2016), Prada Foundation Milan (2018), and Kunstenfestival Watou (2021).
Ives Maes is represented by Sofie Van De Velde Gallery in Antwerp: https://sofievandevelde.be